“Pride and Prejudice”, by Jane Austen

 

308 pages, The Folio Society

You all have read or heard the quote, I’m sure: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”. In Pride and Prejudice, said single man is Charles Bingley, a wealthy young gentleman who has rented the manor of Netherfield Park that, in turn, causes quite the rumpus in the nearby village of Longbourn – especially in the Bennet household, which consists of the beautiful Jane, the intelligent Elizabeth (and the book’s heroine), the plain Mary, the silly Catherine and the frivolous Lydia – each of whom have rather dubious marriage prospects, as their father, though a gentleman, has no male heir and his estate is “entailed”, i.e., he is forbidden to sell the property or will it to his widow or daughters, as the settlement deed dictates that his next male relation must inherit. As in Sense and Sensibility, we once again see the unjust nature of the entail system and, through Jane’s gentle criticism, learn to dislike it as much as Austen did.

As can well be imagined, Mrs. Bennet is extremely eager to find rich husbands for her daughters, seeing as they can’t very well find employment for themselves. Perish the thought. When the Bennets become acquainted with their new neighbor – and his friend, the proud and haughty Mr. Darcy – their first impressions lead to some hard feelings (as well as romantic ones). Bingley becomes quickly attached to Jane, while Darcy leaves the Bennets and their friends cold. However, at subsequent social functions over following weeks, the seemingly haughty Darcy finds himself increasingly attracted to Elizabeth’s charm and intelligence (thus proving himself to be, one would think, quite a modern gentleman). I think that, once again, Jane’s criticism of the prevailing societal norms is all the stronger for its subtlety: if the Bennet girls do not marry, they may very well end their days in the gutter. And, as they are women, their options are limited in the extreme. While I am not one to bemoan women’s fate in the Western World as akin to serfdom, as so many modern Feminists are wont to do, it cannot be denied that their options until the present day were curtailed at best. This is on effect display in Pride and Prejudice.

Meanwhile, Jane’s romance with Bingley, continues to blossom, with the agreeable Jane visiting Netherfield at her mother’s insistence, only to catch ill in a downpour and forcing her to stay at the estate. In order to tend to her sister, Elizabeth finds she must hike through muddy lanes and fields and, so, arrives at Netherfield with a spattered dress, much to the snobbish disdain of Caroline, Bingley’s sister; but her vitriol only really takes full flight when she notices that Darcy (whom she is secretly/openly pursuing) pays court to the parvenu Elizabeth. When Elizabeth and Jane at last return to Longbourn, they find Mr. Collins, their kinsman and clergyman who stands to inherit Mr. Bennet’s property (due to all that entailing), visiting their home. Collins is a pompous fool, though he is quite enthralled by Elizabeth, to her utter embarrassment. Shortly after his arrival, he makes a proposal of marriage to her, but she rejects him, wounding his pride (is this Jane’s take on the Church of England specifically, or religion in general?).

The other Bennet girls, in the meantime, haven’t been idle, and become friendly with the militia officers stationed in a nearby town; among them is one George Wickham, a handsome young man who is friendly toward Elizabeth and tells her how Darcy cruelly cheated him out of an inheritance, a tale the already disinclined Elizabeth believes all-too readily, her prejudice against Darcy on full display. As winter falls, Darcy and the Bingleys leave Netherfield for London, quite without warning and much to the Bennet’s dismay – Jane’s especially. Surprisingly, news comes that Charlotte Lucas – Elizabeth’s best friend and the poor daughter of a local knight – has become engaged to Mr. Collins. Charlotte explains that she is getting older and needs the match for financial reasons, rather than romantic, thus bringing home my above observation of Jane’s message in stark terms.

As winter progresses, Jane travels to London, ostensibly to visit friends but really hoping to run into Bingley; however, Caroline calls on her and behaves with the utmost disdain, while Bingley fails to visit her at all. The marriage prospects for the Bennet girls appear bleak, indeed. With the coming of spring, Elizabeth visits Charlotte, who now lives near the home of Mr. Collins’ patron, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who is also Darcy’s aunt; Darcy calls on Lady Catherine and encounters Elizabeth, whose presence leads him to make a number of visits to the Collins’ home, where she is staying. One day, he makes a shocking proposal of marriage, which Elizabeth quickly refuses, telling Darcy that she considers him arrogant and unpleasant, then scolds him for steering Bingley away from Jane and disinheriting Wickham. What occurs here is Darcy being the brave one, subsuming his pride and opening himself to the full-furnace blast of Elizabeth’s prejudice (such is every man’s fate). That Jane creates, in Elizabeth, an intelligent, self-possessed and yet flawed woman is proof positive of her brilliance and bravery as a writer; Elizabeth, while otherwise estimable, is not perfect and, therefore, relatable.

Darcy retreats in the face of this feminine disdain, but returns with his riposte – a letter, in which he admits that, while he urged Bingley to distance himself from Jane, it was only because he thought that their romance shallow; as for Wickham, he informs Elizabeth that he’s a liar and that the real cause of their falling out was Wickham’s attempt to elope with his younger (underage) sister, Georgiana and, in so doing, abscond with her inheritance. This letter causes Elizabeth to reevaluate her feelings about Darcy and she returns home and acts coldly toward Wickham, now knowing the truth about him. The militia, meanwhile, departs, making Catherine the silly and Lydia the frivolous distraught, though Lydia manages to obtain permission from her father to spend the summer with an old colonel in Brighton – whence Wickham’s regiment has gone. With the arrival of June Elizabeth goes on another journey, this time with family friends the Gardiners.

The trip takes her to the North and, eventually, to Pemberley – Darcy’s estate. After making sure that Darcy is away, she deigns to tour the residence and revels in the wonders of this oh-so-English country house; simultaneously, she hears from Darcy’s servants that, as employers go, he is kindness itself. Her thoughts awhirl, Elizabeth is further distraught at the arrival of Darcy who, wonder of wonders, behaves towards her with nothing but kindness and cordiality. Making no mention of his (refused) proposal, he entertains the Gardiners and invites Elizabeth to meet his beloved Georgiana. A letter then arrives for Elizabeth, detailing how Lydia has eloped with Wickham and, seemingly, disappeared (and, evidently, living in sin). Fearful of the disgrace such a situation would bring on her entire family, Elizabeth hastens home. From this encounter, it would be tempting indeed to suggest that Elizabeth’s sole reason for caging her mind about Darcy is her desire to be mistress of Pemberley, but this suggests a cynicism which is alien to both Jane and her creation. It is rather the new reports of Darcy, and his behavior towards her and her friends, that turns her head at last.

The misters Gardiner and Bennet go off in search of Lydia, but Mr. Bennet must eventually return home, empty-handed. But just when all seems lost, a letter arrives from Mr. Gardiner, detailing how not only has the absconding couple been found, but that Wickham has agreed to marry Lydia in exchange for an annual income. The Bennets are convinced that Mr. Gardiner has paid Wickham to do the right thing, but Elizabeth soon learns the true source of the money, and of her family’s salvation, was none other than Darcy. Now married, Wickham and Lydia return to Longbourn briefly – where Mr. Bennet is proper, but cold, towards his daughter and new son-in-law – before they depart for Wickham’s new assignment in the North of England. Lydia did that which no young woman in early 19^th Century England could do: run off with a man on her own recognizance. Jane seems to be of two minds of this: while Lydia seems a strong, modern woman in making her own choice, that choice – made without input from parents, family or relations – was wretched and almost led to a life ruined before it began.

Shortly thereafter, Bingley returns to Netherfield and resumes his courtship of Jane. Darcy goes to stay with him and pays visits to the Bennets but makes no mention of his desire to marry Elizabeth. Bingley, on the other hand, presses his suit and proposes to Jane, to the delight of everyone but Bingley’s haughty sister. While the family celebrates, Lady Catherine de Bourgh pays a visit to Longbourn; she corners Elizabeth and says that she has heard that Darcy, her nephew, is planning to marry her. Since she considers a Bennet an unsuitable match for a Darcy, Lady Catherine demands that Elizabeth promise to refuse him. Elizabeth spiritedly refuses, saying she is not engaged to Darcy, but she will not promise anything against her own happiness. A little later, Elizabeth and Darcy go out walking together and he tells her that his feelings have not altered since the spring. She tenderly accepts his proposal, and both Jane and Elizabeth are married. We come full circle then: Darcy has subsumed his pride and Elizabeth has reformed her prejudice, and both are the better for it.

Austen’s ability to draw compelling, sympathetic and believable characters is in full flight with the Bennet sisters. Jane, the oldest and most beautiful of the Bennet daughters, has a kind heart and a gentle nature; as Elizabeth’s confidant, Jane tries to keep her sister’s tendency to be judgmental in check by offering positive interpretations of negative situations. Elizabeth, “Lizzie”, is more like her father than her mother in that they both enjoy laughing at the ridiculous (like her mother); but while she is sensible, she also makes hasty judgements that are not always accurate. Mary thinks she is accomplished (but isn’t), quotes seemingly deep passages from boring books and plays and sings (both awfully). Kitty is silly and empty headed, but tends to be forgotten by her sisters (and, if I may be so bold, by Austen, as well). Lydia, the youngest, silliest, most man-mad of them all, is apt to act first and think (if she thinks at all) second; it is her actions that drive the plot to its conclusion. But when Charles Bingley and other young gentlemen with large fortunes come into the neighborhood, the Bennet girls get very excited indeed, but each within the confines of their characters.

Reading this book for the first time, after having seen several televised adaptations, I was pleasantly surprised by the quickness of the writing. The tale was, or course, familiar, but for all that I still found myself anxiously following the plot and cheering on the characters, hoping beyond hope that everyone’s true natures would be revealed, love would triumph and justice be done. And it is in Pride and Prejudice that Austen’s character-driven plotting shines through, for throughout you have good men and women, but also bad men and women. For Jane Austen is fair: Jane and Elizabeth are smart and sensible, but then again so is their father; Catherine and Lydia are as foolish and immature as a pair of girls could be, and so again is their mother. And though while Wickham is a cad who is not to be trusted a jot, Darcy is as old-school a gentleman as can be found and as solid as Gibraltar. Jane never wrote a “woman good; man bad” story, and this, I believe, is one of the many reasons why her writings are still as popular today as they were when they were published, 200+ years ago.

“Third Reich Victorious: Alternate Decisions of World War II”, edited by Peter G. Tsouras

 

256 pages, Greenhill Books, ISBN-13: 978-1853674921

I reviewed Peter G. Tsouras’ alternative history collection, Rising Sun Victorious: The Alternative History of How the Japanese Won the Pacific War, on July 27^th, 2019, so, I might as well review his other alternative history collection, Third Reich Victorious: Alternate Decisions of World War II, as well. Both books are a stimulating and entirely plausible (frightening) insight into how Hitler and his generals might have defeated the Allies and won the war, and over-all serves as a convincing sideways look at how the Third Reich’s bid at world domination in World War II could have plausibly gone the other way. First things first: Third Reich Victorious is a work of fiction rather than a history of the greatest of wars and contains 11 unrelated chapters, each of which presents a series of hypothetical events (some quite fanciful) that each results in Adolf Hitler’s Germany winning World War II (the authors have even gone to the trouble to invent footnotes as a means of increasing the verisimilitude of these fantasy scenarios). And what, pray, are these scenarios?

• What if the Germans captured the whole of the BEF at Dunkirk?
• What if the RAF had been defeated in the Battle of Britain?
• What if the U-Boats had strangled Britain with an impregnable blockade?
• What if Rommel had been triumphant in North Africa?
• What if the Germans had beaten the Red Army at Kursk?
• What if Goebbels killed Hitler and took over Germany?
• What if Hitler had opted for an assault on Gibraltar in February 1941?
• What if Malta had surrendered to the Axis?
• What if Fascist Italy, like Fascist Spain, had remained neutral in the war?
• What if Sixth Army had broken out of Stalingrad?
• What if Germany had captured the Caucasian oil fields in the fall of 1941?

The authors, writing as if these and other world-changing events had really happened, project realistic scenarios based on the true capabilities and circumstances of the opposing forces and going so far as referencing books that have never been written (Fallschirmjäger Over Moscow: The Daring German Airborne Assault That Captured Moscow by the fictitious Colonel David Glasshouse, or Panzers to the Pacific: The March Across Asia by the very real Heinz Guderian). One problem with this collection is that the authors are not particularly skilled at writing fiction; some of the writing, especially the invented conversations, is simply cringe-worthy (I won’t emphasize one author over another). In the introduction, editor Peter G. Tsouras refers to The Man in the High Castle, the1962 novel by Philip K. Dick (and current miniseries) set in a variant future in which the Axis had won the war; Dick was a brilliant and prolific writer, but evoking his memory is unfortunate because it emphasizes the lower literary quality of so much of the writing in Third Reich Victorious. That said, there is still a great deal to recommend here, for Tsouras has assembled an A-Team of well-known historians and military analysts who have given a great deal of thought to the various turning points in World War II. Third Reich Victorious, like Rising Sun Victorious, is a thoughtful, well-edited and very well-chosen selection of essays.

“The Fourth Part of the World: An Astonishing Epic of Global Discovery, Imperial Ambition, and the Birth of America”, by Toby Lester

 

480 pages, Free Press, ISBN-13: 978-1416535348

Toby Lester’s The Fourth Part of the World: An Astonishing Epic of Global Discovery, Imperial Ambition, and the Birth of America is much more than the tale of how a groundbreaking map of the world got drawn, published and circulated (though it tells that tale well); it also provides a portal into the opening decades of the discovery of the transatlantic world and how, even though the the ancient lore from Herodotus to Ptolemy got transformed, the old myths managed to endure. The map in question is the Waldseemüller Map, or the Universalis Cosmographia – the Universal Cosmography – by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, originally published in April 1507, and is known as the first map to use the name “America” on what is now called South America on the main map, bestowed in honor of the Italian, Amerigo Vespucci. As for that “Fourth Part of the World”, it refers to the somewhat mythical-yet-actual undiscovered lands (after Asia, Europe and Africa) described by the ancients which we know now as America, North and South.

In the world we live in today, where there are no significant undiscovered lands and few major geographical puzzles left to solve, this book is particularly enticing as it put me squarely back in the minds of all those Medieval and Renaissance travelers, scholars and mapmakers as they struggled to put together a jigsaw puzzle to which half the pieces were still missing and produce an accurate view of the world they were still discovering. Following in their footsteps was exhilarating, thanks both to the facts themselves and to Lester’s extremely knowledgeable but always lively writing. While Lester does great work in making the process of map-making itself understandable, he doesn’t shun the livelier bits and pieces of the story, such as the way “Mongol Chic” spread through western Europe the late 13^th and early 14^th Centuries (Italian parents even named their sons after Mongol khans!) This book was sheer delight to read, as it combined intellectual history (the story of the transmission of knowledge and of how new discoveries were incorporated into and transformed the way people viewed their world), science (the art of navigation and marine map-making, for instance) and the stories of the explorers, both those whose curiosity could be pursued only from the Medieval version of an armchair as well as those like Columbus and Vespucci who took the helm of their ships and sailed off into the unknown (I confess I particularly enjoyed the attention given to some of the more obscure figures, from the mapmakers who finally produced the map bearing the label “America” to early 14^th Century Papal scholar Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini).

The Fourth Part of the World is an historical adventure story about a 1507 map that had been lost for centuries and about how America got its name, but more importantly it is about human progress and the unending quest to discover who we are, how we got here and where we fit into the grand scheme of things. Lester gives the reader great insight into the minds of educated people during the middle ages and the Renaissance as we learn of their fears, ignorance, superstitions, hopes and ambitions, and of mankind’s slow but steady progress through the centuries in learning about ourselves, our environment and our limitations.

“Revolution”, by Martin Anderson

 

486 pages, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN-13: 978-0151770878

Martin Anderson was an economist, policy analyst, author and one of President Reagan’s leading advisors, where he served as the chief domestic policy advisor from 1981 to 1982 and then as a member of the President’s Economic Policy Advisory Board from 1982 to 1989. His book, Revolution, is basically an Operator’s Manual for the Presidency, written by one who was present at the creation of the Reagan administration. Lest one forget – and most people have – when Reagan took office after a series of very supposedly very bright Presidents who obviously were not up to the job, the prevailing opinion was that the job of POTUS had become simply too big for any one man to handle competently.

But, since Reagan, nobody thinks that any more, and Anderson was one of the many advisors who helped to implement that thing called “Reaganomics” (are you old enough to remember when that term began as a pejorative and became a compliment, only after it began to work? I am). Anderson was one of the people who helped show how tax cuts work and why doing them is good for all, being one of the leading prophets who helped Reagan persuade others within government of the benefits associated with his program. But this is a book about much more than economics, as Anderson also dissects the advantages and disadvantages inherent in Reagan’s management style by shedding light into the personalities that inhabited the West Wing and all of the fights that went on behind closed doors.

As such, Revolution is not just a memoir in which the author explains only that which made him someone to be looked up to, rather it is a sober work in which one recounts the mistakes and good decisions he made; Martin Anderson shows us how he did it.

“Knights of Jerusalem: The Crusading Order of Hospitallers, 1100-1565”, by David Nicolle

 

224 pages, Osprey Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1846030802

To some they were the Chosen Knights of Christ, while to others, they were simply pirates bearing crosses, but the Knights Hospitaller – or the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem – was in fact a Christian organization that began as an Amalfitan hospital founded in Jerusalem in 1018 to provide care for poor, sick or injured pilgrims to the Holy Land, and in Knights of Jerusalem: The Crusading Order of Hospitallers, 1100-1565, David Nicolle details the history of this misunderstood organization (it should be noted that this is basically a reprint of Osprey’s twin warrior titles on the Knights Hospitaller, unfortunately lacking in the color plates.).

After the Western Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade, it became a religious/military order under its own charter, and was charged with the care and defense of the Holy Land. The Hospitallers thence evolved into one of the great military forces of the Crusades, fighting the Islamic enemy alongside their brothers and rivals, the Templers. After the fall of the Holy Land, the Order moved to Rhodes and pursued a naval crusade, regarded by the Ottomans and Venetians as simple high-seas pirates. Eventually they wound up on Malta, where they remained for more than 250 years, surviving the famous great siege of 1565, until finally ousted by Napoleon in 1798. When the Knights ceased to be associated with any one place, it gave rise to successors in existence until the present including the Sovereign Order of Malta.

Knights of Jerusalem details the origins, equipment, battle tactics and daily life of these Knights, from their origins as an order of charitable, hospital-running monks in Jerusalem to their days as a band of seaborne crusaders harassing the Ottoman Empire throughout the Mediterranean. It is not without its issues, however: there are far too many “it suggests” or “it indicates” and “or perhaps it shows” that it is hard to get the author to give definitive answers. Maybe he is an overly-cautious researcher, but in the end it leaves a rather empty feeling. The book is also kinda boring, with no personalities shining through, which is a damn shame, as this sovereign order of badasses attracted quite the cast of characters. But perhaps one shouldn’t expect all of that from an Osprey book, seeing as their works really focus on the military-side of their subjects. So for that, if for no other reason, Knights of Jerusalem is just fine.

“Overlord: The D-Day Landings”, by Ken Ford and Steven Zaloga

 

368 pages, Osprey Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1846034244

ANOTHER Osprey military-themed book, this time from WWII: Overlord: The D-Day Landings by Ken Ford and Steven Zaloga is basically a reissuing of several Osprey books packaged together: D-Day 1944 (1): Omaha Beach; D-Day 1944 (2): Utah Beach & the US Airborne Landings; D-Day 1944 (3): Sword Beach & the British Airborne Landings and D-Day 1944 (4): Gold & Juno Beaches. As one should expect from Osprey, this is a no-nonsense campaign book that deals with tactics, strategy and armaments, with little (if any) discussion about the men who fought and died. The individual campaign books themselves each provided an aggregate overview of both side’s armies, leaders and plans from the perspective of the individual campaigns themselves. In addition, there is an excellent analysis, again on the aggregate basis as opposed to from the perspective of the individual battles, on why the allies were victorious. A number of factors are examined, with the failure of the Axis command and control structure being the most important reason for their failure to hurl the Allies into the sea. Full of maps and photographs from the actual landing, Overlord really breaks down and describes just what, how and why what happened on June 6, 1944, for any layman to understand.

“A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World”, by Tony Horwitz

 

464 pages, Henry Holt and Co., ISBN-13: 978-0805076035

I found that perhaps the best thing about A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World is the fact that Horwitz actually took the quest himself and got to experience and see what it was like the best he could which, I believe, made him seem more credible and relatable to his readers. But this is more than just a travelogue, as Horwitz divides his time between an historical narrative of the Americas and a discussion of the current state of the localities that historical events and characters passed through, and his own experiences in those areas – which turns out being not so great.

Thus, we often find Horwitz in the middle of no-where but, because some famous figure camped there back in the 17^th Century or there was a huge Indian settlement there in the 16^th, he feels compelled to go stand there and tell you how boring it is and how bad the food was and how the motel had bedbugs. The reason that nobody goes there anymore is because there really is no reason to go there and most of the people he is following around didn’t want to be there either; add to that a lot of the time he can’t even be sure if that is the site he is supposed to be at in the first place, but Horwitz goes on and on about Podunk and BFE and doesn’t even bother to try to romanticize it…which, come to think of it, I actually rather appreciated, but it doesn’t make the book any more fun to read (really, you may think that L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, would make a great place to visit, until you read Horwitz’s description of his own travels there).

If you are someone who has a limited exposure to the history of the Americas, then this book is actually a pretty good primer. It will expose you to some interesting characters and some fascinating things about your own backyard that you never knew, which is always fun…but, if you are the sort of person who has a love for history (and you know who you are) then you will probably find this book as dull as I did.

“Martin Luther: His Life and Work”, by Hartmann Grisar

609 pages, AMS Press, ISBN-13: 978-0404029357 

Hartmann Grisar originally published Martin Luther: His Life and Work in 1926 (the edition I inherited from my Dad was published in 1971). Grisar was a German-Austrian Jesuit and church historian who studied at the Royal Theological and Philosophical Academy of Münster from 1862 to 1863 and at the Theological Faculty of the University of Innsbruck from 1863 to 1868, when he was ordained a priest and entered Rome in the Jesuit order…hmmmmm, a biography of Luther written by a Jesuit; what could possibly go wrong?

Overall this book is a bland as bland could be, just the sort of biography a 19^th Century German Jesuit would write. Perhaps Grisar’s biggest gripe is that Luther and his movement failed to respect the authority of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, which he judges as the opening of the floodgates of subjectivism in which everyone determines for him or herself the message and implications of the Gospel. Not really a novel or noteworthy complaint that, as Luther himself insisted that a higher, earthly authority shouldn’t and couldn’t control the interpretation of the gospel; everyone can and, indeed, must interpret and understand the scripture for themselves (this is not to say that Luther or any other Christians weren’t going to take issue with those who interpreted scripture wrongly – or, perhaps, “wrongly”).

What is interesting – and, don’t forget, this is a book published in 1927 when Freudian psychobabble was still all the rage – is that Grisar identifies Luther’s desperate search for a gracious God as symptomatic of Luther’s own spiritual angst. Grisar faults Luther’s question and his Pauline conclusion – the sola fide, “faith alone”, that asserts God’s pardon for guilty sinners is granted to and received through faith alone, excluding all works or good deeds –  as a false foundation for doctrine and faith (well he would, wouldn’t he?). Grisar views this concern for the centrality of justification as peculiarly Lutheran and peculiar to Luther, not something universal for one and all. For Grisar, Luther’s breakthrough to a “new gospel”, and what Grisar regards as the founding of a “new religion”, should have remained Luther’s private struggle and not the Reformation of the whole Church. Although Grisar, at times, shows objective admiration for this historic foe of orthodox Catholicism, he also suggests that Luther’s issues were not the result of a searing intense pursuit of Christian faith, but merely the result of mental illness. A low blow, even from a Jesuit.